Category: Health

Britain has confirmed yet another spike in new COVID-19 infections, with close to 4,200 cases identified across the country Friday, the highest daily number in two months.

Seventy five percent of the new cases in Britain are believed to be infections with the so-called Indian variant, first detected in India, which is more transmissible than the previously dominant variant.

Also Friday, Britain approved a single-shot COVID-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson. It is the fourth COVID-19 vaccine approved in the country, after inoculations made by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna.

The European Commission has authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in children as young as 12, widening the pool of those eligible to be inoculated, following similar approvals in the United States and Canada.

The commission made the announcement Friday after the European Union’s medical regulator, the European Medicines Agency, Friday recommended the use of the vaccine in children ages 12 to 15, saying that data show it is safe and effective.

“Extending the protection of a safe and effective vaccine in this younger population is an important step forward in the fight against this pandemic,” said Marco Cavaleri, the EMA’s head of health threats and vaccines strategy.

It is now up to EU states to decide whether and when to offer the vaccine to young adolescents.

Germany and Italy have already said they are preparing to extend their vaccination campaign to youths ages 12-15.

French President Emmanuel Macron pledged Friday to help provide South Africa and other African countries with vaccine doses. During a visit to Pretoria, Macron said France would donate more than 30 million doses this year to the United Nations-backed COVAX global vaccine initiative.

According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, South Africa has so far vaccinated roughly 700,000 people out of its population of 40 million.

In Australia, Melbourne went back under lockdown on Friday, as health authorities said a cluster of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases had increased to 39.In other developments Friday, India reported 186,364 new coronavirus infections during the previous 24 hours, its lowest daily rise since April 14. Deaths rose from the previous day to 3,660.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said children at summer camp who are not vaccinated do not have to wear masks outside unless they are in crowds or in sustained close contact with others. The new guidance comes as millions of children are set to resume summer camp this summer after the closure of many camps last year due to the virus.

Americans are celebrating the start of the Memorial Day weekend by hitting the roads and skies as they seek to cast off more than a year of pandemic restrictions and try to resume a sense of normalcy.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas urged Americans to be patient this weekend at busy airports.

“People will see lines because there’s going to be a tremendous amount of people traveling this weekend,” he told ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday.

Source: Voice of America

Veteran freedom fighter Yemane Tesfamariam, Head of Infrastructure and General Service of the Ministry of Information passes away today, 29 May at the age of 72.

Veteran fighter Yemane who joined the armed struggle for independence in 1975 has served his country and people in different capacities at the information department during the armed struggle and later in the Ministry of Information.

Veteran fighter Yemane Tesfamariam is survived by his wife and six children.

The funeral service of veteran fighter Yemane was conducted today at 4 PM at the Asmara Martyrs’ Cemetery.

Expressing deep sorrow in the passing away of veteran fighter Yemane Tesfamariam, the Ministry of Information expresses condolences to families, colleagues, and friends.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

NAIROBI – The family of an American investor of Somali origin whose body was found with torture wounds days after he went missing in Nairobi wants Kenya’s director of public prosecutions to run a separate investigation from one being done by police.

In a letter sent through their lawyer, relatives of Bashir Mohamed Mohamud, 36, question the behavior of police after Mohamud disappeared in an apparent abduction.

The family questioned the time it took police to ask them to positively identify Mohamud when he had been identified days before they were notified. In the letter delivered to the DPP’s office this week, they asked why the shell of Mohamud’s burned Range Rover was taken away within minutes after the vehicle was linked to him.

The family delivered the letter even as local media published stories quoting unnamed sources without evidence insinuating that Mohamud was funding extremism through money transfers made by his construction company, Infinity Development Limited.

Human rights defenders in Kenya have previously illustrated how police linked slaying victims to extremism or robberies to explain unsolved killings.

Wilfred Ollal, the coordinator of a network of community-based social justice centers in Kenya, said people disappear every week before their bodies are found in the countryside, while others are never found.

The killings and forced disappearances are rampant in low-income areas of the capital, but nobody is immune, he said.

“Our interventions save some, but the bodies of others are found in rivers,” Ollal said Saturday.

Police, without producing any evidence, attempt to explain such killings on social media pages associated with the force by saying the person killed was a criminal who would have bribed his way to freedom, if arrested and prosecuted. Both claims have been proven false by the media and human rights activists.

According to rights group Missing Persons, Kenyan police killed 157 people in 2020 and 10 people disappeared without a trace after being arrested.

According to Mohamud’s family and police, he was abducted on May 13 by unknown assailants as he drove from a mall in Nairobi’s wealthy Lavington neighborhood. The family reported him missing three days later, and police reported finding his body the same day in Kerugoya, a town 127 kilometers (78.91 miles) north of the city.

Relatives question why they were not informed until May 22, when police had identified the body as Mohamud’s by at least May 18.

An autopsy carried out by Kenya’s chief government pathologist revealed that Mohamud had been strangled. The autopsy report said the body showed signs of torture that included blunt head trauma and burn marks, suspected to have been caused by a vehicle’s cigarette lighter.

Source: Voice of America

At least 18 people were killed and dozens more were injured this week in two days of intercommunal clashes in South Sudan’s Warrap state, according to local authorities.

Gogrial East County Commissioner Ayom Bul said armed men from Unity state crossed into Warrap state on Wednesday intending to steal cattle. When they couldn’t find any, he said, they went on the attack.

“The armed men came to my county with the intent to raid cattle and because the cattle keepers moved away their cattle days back to another area, these armed men couldn’t find any cattle, but ended up attacking the villages and Mangol market, killing children, women and other local youth,” Bul told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.

In response, young men from Warrap state mobilized and the two sides clashed in the small town of Mangol, said Bul. He said Warrap youth “repulsed” the attackers, but not before they burned down two villages and the Mangol market.

He said 15 people were killed in the clashes, including five children and three women.

The fighting on Wednesday and Thursday marked the fourth time armed men from Unity state attacked the area in recent weeks, said Bul. He said more than 30 people were killed in Mangol Apuk last month by the same armed youths. Bul called on authorities from both states to act.

Disarmament campaign sought

Unity state information minister Gabriel Makuei confirmed that armed young men from his state had clashed with Gogrial East County citizens in Warrap state.

“This conflict between armed youths from Warrap and Unity states has been continuing for the last two months,” he said. Makuei said three people were killed and eight others seriously injured in clashes on the Unity state side of the border.

Makuei called on authorities to carry out a nationwide disarmament campaign so that all citizens could live in peace, and he urged communities in Warrap and Unity states in particular to embrace peaceful coexistence.

Warrap state information minister Ring Deng Ading condemned the attack.

“I also appeal to the communities of Warrap state to stay calm and give a chance for the government to look into the matter,” Ading told South Sudan in Focus.

Edmondi Yakani, a Juba-based civil society activist and executive director of the Community Empowerment for Progress organization, condemned the killing of “innocent women and children in Warrap state by the armed men” and called on state and national leaders to “immediately come up with the mechanism to end this persistent violence in the country.”

Yakani urged President Salva Kiir to declare intercommunal conflict a national crisis because the government is unable to control it. He said the future of the country remains dark if leaders continue to ignore violence in Unity, Warrap, Lakes, and Jonglei states along with the Greater Pibor Administrative Area.

The only way to end the violence is a demonstration of political will among South Sudanese leaders to reconcile, disarm and build consensus among communities, according to Yakani.

The revitalized peace agreement for South Sudan mandates that the leaders conduct nationwide disarmament and initiate peace-building activities to restore social cohesion among the communities of South Sudan.

Source: Voice of America

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived Friday in South Africa for a lightning trip to discuss COVID vaccine access for Africa, aides said.

Macron arrived from a historic visit to Rwanda where he acknowledged French responsibility in the 1994 genocide.

Landing in Johannesburg, he headed for the capital Pretoria where he was to be welcomed by Cyril Ramaphosa at Union Buildings, the seat of government.

The pair will launch a program at the University of Pretoria to support African vaccine production, a project backed by the European Union, United States and World Bank.

The leaders, say Ramaphosa’s office, are also expected to discuss a temporary waiver of World Trade Organization (WTO) property rights over coronavirus vaccine.

The idea is being pushed by South Africa and India, which say the waiver will spur vaccine production in developing countries.

Sub-Saharan Africa has lagged behind the rest of the world with vaccination — less than two percent of its population has been immunized six months after the campaign started.

Ramaphosa this month sounded the alarm about what he called “vaccine apartheid” between rich countries and poor ones.

Pharma companies oppose the waiver, saying it could sap incentives for future research and development.

They also point out that manufacturing a vaccine requires know-how and technical resources — something that cannot be acquired at the flip of a switch.

Macron’s approach is to push for a transfer of technology to enable production sites in poorer countries.

The industry “is highly concentrated in the United States, Europe, Asia and a little bit in Latin America,” a Macron aide said.

“Africa today produces very few anti-COVID productions, and most notably no vaccine at the present time.”

COVID-19 hit

South Africa is the continent’s most industrialized economy, but also its worst-hit by COVID.

The country has recorded more than 1.6 million cases of Africa’s 4.7 million infections and accounts for more than 40 percent of its nearly 130,000 fatalities.

But just one percent of its population of 59 million have been vaccinated — most of them health workers and people aged 60 or above.

The immunization effort got off to a stuttering start when South Africa purchased AstraZeneca vaccines earlier this year and then sold them to other African countries following fears that they would be less effective.

Then, after it started inoculating health workers, using Johnson & Johnson jabs, it had to pause for two weeks mid-April to vet risks over blood clots that had been reported in the US.

Delayed trip

Macron’s trip was scheduled to have taken place more than a year ago but was postponed as the pandemic shifted into higher gear.

His push for the visit stems from the fact that South Africa “is a major partner on the continent, a member of the G20, it’s regularly invited to the G-7 — it’s essential in the approach to multilateralism,” one of his aides said before the trip.

Macron will also make a pitch for French business in South Africa, especially in climate-friendly sectors.

The two will also discuss the security crisis in northern Mozambique, where a bloody jihadist insurgency is now in its fourth year.

The French energy giant Total last month suspended work on a massive $20 billion gas project in Cabo Delgado province after jihadists attacked the nearby town of Palma.

Before flying home Saturday, Macron will talk to members of the French community and, like many VIPs before him, visit the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Source: Voice of America